Background: The aim of prenatal care is to promote good maternal and foetal health and to identify risk factors for adverse pregnancy outcomes in an attempt to promptly manage and solve them. Although high prenatal care attendance is reported in most areas in Brazil, perinatal and neonatal mortalities are disproportionally high, raising doubts about the quality and performance of the care provided. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the adequacy of prenatal care use and the risk factors involved in inadequate prenatal care utilization in the metropolitan area of Aracaju, Northeast Brazil.

The impairment in weight and length was more severe in cleft lip + palate and isolated cleft palate children and may be attributed to feeding difficulties compared to the isolated cleft lip group.

OBJECTIVE:Intimate partner abuse is a complex phenomenon and a public health problem and health care services are one of the places sought by women in this situation. The objective of this study was to assess the prevalence of violence against women attending a health care center. METHODS:This study was carried out in a municipality of Southeastern Brazil, in 2003. A sample of 265 women, aged 18 to 49 years old, was interviewed using a questionnaire administered face-to-face. Violence was classified as psychological, physical, sexual and general. Statistical analyses utilized were exact logistic regression and Fisher's exact test. RESULTS:Psychological violence, at least once in life, was reported by 41.5%, physical violence by 26.4%, and 9.8% reported sexual violence. "General violence", which refers to anyone of the above mentioned types of violence, was reported by 45.3% of the women, and, in 20.3% of the cases, they stated it had occurred during the last 12 months before the interview. However, when asked whether they had suffered any kind of violence in life, only 22.3% answered affirmatively. The multivariate analysis indicated that the risk factors for each type of violence were: drug use by the partner, socioeconomic status and family history of violence for both psychological and general violence; drug use by the partner, schooling and family history of violence for physical violence; and, socioeconomic status and family history of violence for sexual violence. CONCLUSIONS:This study indicates that the prevalence of violence among women attending the health care center is high and consistent with the results of other investigations. It also suggests that most of the violence is invisible to the health care center.

Children with CLP/ICP had impaired W/A and BMI growth with spontaneous recovery starting early in childhood. This study established specific W/A, BMI, and L/A growth curves for children with cleft lip and palate.

Neck metastases and diseased margins of oral cavity carcinomas are the prognostic factors that can most impact the survival rate.

OBJECTIVE:The objective of this study was to evaluate whether adolescent pregnancy is a risk factor for low birth weight (LBW) babies. METHODS:This was a cross-sectional study of mothers and their newborns from a birth cohort in Aracaju, Northeastern Brazil. Data were collected consecutively from March to July 2005. Information collected included socioeconomic, biological and reproductive aspects of the mothers, using a standardized questionnaire. The impact of early pregnancy on birth weight was evaluated by multiple logistic regression. RESULTS:We studied 4,746 pairs of mothers and their babies. Of these, 20.6% were adolescents (< 20 years of age). Adolescent mothers had worse socioeconomic and reproductive conditions and perinatal outcomes when compared to other age groups. Having no prenatal care and smoking during pregnancy were the risk factors associated with low birth weight. Adolescent pregnancy, when linked to marital status "without partner", was associated with an increased proportion of low birth weight babies. CONCLUSIONS:Adolescence was a risk factor for LBW only for mothers without partners. Smoking during pregnancy and lack of prenatal care were considered to be independent risk factors for LBW.

The hypercaloric diet led to an improvement in nutritional status, which in turn contributed to improved respiratory conditions in isolated RS.

This study aimed to identify and validate the defining characteristics of the nursing diagnosis Impaired spirituality. The methodological framework proposed by Fehring for the clinical validation of nursing diagnosis was used. The investigation was carried out in a dialysis clinic and had as participants 120 patients with chronic renal disease. Data were collected by two expert nurses, through interviews. The prevalence of the nursing diagnosis Impaired spirituality in the sample was 27.5%. It was found that the most frequent defining characteristics were Expresses behavioral changes: rage, Inability to express creativity, Questions suffering and Expresses alienation. The clinical validation of Impaired spirituality contributed to refine this diagnosis. Its identification in patients with chronic renal disease undergoing dialysis treatment can offer alternatives for a safer and more effective intervention, aiming at the satisfaction of the spiritual needs of these patients.